Hi Carolyn,
Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!
We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.
We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.
Important note!
Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.
If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.
Okay, let’s get started!
The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.
We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.
Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.
The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.
Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .
Regarding perseverance you picked .
As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.
Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.
In week 2, we looked at your interests.
Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.
Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.
Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.
In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.
You said your top three values were benevolence, self-direction, and achievement.
You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.
When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.
You said your top three talents were kinesthetic, musical, and social.
We then talked about goal hierarchies.
You said you had a pretty good idea about your top-level goal.
We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.
A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to get a decent job! .
Here is how self-concordant that goal was:
Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.
It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!
Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.
We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:
Work Smart
In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.
You WOOPed!
For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Read before bed everyday .
For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said I will feel relaxed .
For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said My phone .
For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I go to bed, then I will read for 10 min .
Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.
And here’s how much you learned
These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.
The important thing is that you learn something along the way!
In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.
You shared you’ve done daily practice in Meditation .
We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.
In week 8, we discussed feedback.
Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!
You said you felt when receiving critical feedback, and when receiving positive feedback.
We then turned to learning about stress.
In week 9, you reported feeling a lot of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being jobs .
We also talked about adversity and failure.
Although related, adversity and failure are different:
Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.
However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…
Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.
And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.
We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.
Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.
You describe the habit you chose as Work .
Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.
Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?
So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.
In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.
Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.
Here’s how you described them:
You also wrote a gratitude letter to Parent .
In one word, you said it made you feel Grateful .
One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.
… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.
Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.
![]()
Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?
Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.
| |
| Run your own race |
| You guys, young adults, are crazy. (Highly emotional people) - Prof. |
| Secret to happiness is finding alignment of your actions and goal with your value |
| Harmony is aerodynamic |
| Life is an I'll structured problem |
| Deliberate practice is the most effective form of practice!!! |
| Stress can be enhancing! |
| Your brain is a stupid little dog that you just have to train. |
| Mentors are important!! |
| You can be a sustainable giver without burning out! |
In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.
Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:
| |
| Olivia Morganti |
| Getting to know Carolyn was a great experience. As the semester went on, I saw more and more of her personality and perspective. Carolyn is knowledgeable and able to convey her ideas to the rest of the group in a palatable way. Carolyn introduced me to ideas that were new to me. I appreciated Carolyn's ability to listen and take in everyone's perspective and find connections to them.
Carolyn's discovery project was unique and thoughtful. It was a beautiful connection between her interests, bringing good friends and food together. I was impressed by the idea and the execution. She brought her vision to life and did so beautifully.
|
| Paulina Ruiz |
| If I had to choose one word to describe Carolyn it would be kind. Not only is she a great listener, but she also has a way of making people feel more comfortable. I felt very at ease, knowing I could share anything without being judged, and every time being met with a warm response. She is also very thoughtful in what she says during discussions, having always taken the time to think about the question and reflect on her response. Throughout the semester, hearing her always well thought-out answers made me reconsider so many of my more impulsive thoughts.
Carolyn’s supper club discovery project perfectly encompasses everything I said above. It is such a unique and thoughtful project, that it is evident she committed to thinking through her interests to do something that would truly reflect her passion for hosting in a creative way. I think it is really amazing that it is a project with a very clear purpose for others. Doing something that is designed to create an element of comfort, helping put others at ease while enjoying an evening getting to know other people perfectly exemplifies how she is a genuinely kind person. As a whole, her project has made me reconsider what it means to host, and it has inspired me to do something similar for my friends. |
| Gabbi Coetzee |
| I deeply appreciated Carolyn's incredible warmth and kindness within the team. Her gentle and welcoming demeanour created a space where everyone felt comfortable and valued. Working alongside Carolyn was a true pleasure, given her genuine kindness and the ability to make conversations easy, fostering an environment where vulnerability is embraced. Her genuine openness and the enjoyable collaborative experience she created was sincerely appreciated.
Regarding Carolyn's discovery project presentation, I was captivated by the concept of her supper club. The way Carolyn orchestrated the gathering, combined with engaging conversation starters, highlighted her creativity and ability to curate meaningful experiences. The project showcased her excellent people skills, which I had already seen in our group conversations, and her commitment to fostering genuine connections at Penn. For me, she taught valuable lessons about bringing people together and creating innovative ways to build community. |
We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.
Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?
Drumroll please…
Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.
In any case, grit is not built in a day…
…remember that progress is never smooth…
…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.
With grit and gratitude,
Angela and the Grit Lab team.